No one has lit up inside the Glebe or in the Famous Lion. And there's that familiar pavement-bound cluster of smokers outside Gray's Corner pub. This is supposed to be Smoke-on-Trent, the last haven both for addicts desperate for an indoor gasper and those of us who would take a lungful of nicotine over the new pub eau de stale-BO-and-farts any day.

An administrative hiccup by Stoke council means its enforcement officers aren't authorised to issue fixed-penalty notices to renegade smokers until next Monday. But almost all the city's citizens and its 400 landlords seem too cowed to have a crafty one while the officials' backs are turned.

"I thought we'd be smoking at the bar today to be honest," says Alan Bridgewood, puffing away outside Gray's Corner. "But the landlords are concerned about the fine they will get."

The White Lion's landlady, Sue Wainwright, let her regulars flout the ban for the benefit of the local paper on Sunday night but now she's having none of it. The smoke would spoil her sparkling decor. "It would ruin my new paint job - it would all be yellow again," she says. "Ninety-five per cent of my customers are smokers. People here enjoy life - well, we did. But it's the law now and we'll get used to it. The council must feel like right idiots. At least they've put Stoke-on-Trent on the map for more than Robbie Williams."

The council insists it has the power to enforce the law now - but only through a cumbersome committee, because it neglected to formally delegate the powers to environmental health officers. From next Monday, patrolling officials will be able to issue fines.

Finally, opposite the fire station is a pub that dares to take you back to the good old pre-ban days. Ahhhh, the stench of fags mingled with lunch. "Beat the ban - come to Smoke-on-Trent," proclaim posters at Smithfield bar and restaurant. TV vans queue up outside.

"There's no malice intended," says landlord Dax Robateau, although he would be entitled to some, having spent £21,000 on a flash smokers' pavilion outside. "It's the council's blunder. We've just acted on it."

He's already attracted smoking tourists: teachers Shawn James and Martyn McGettigan have taken the bus from Newcastle- under-Lyme to puff in a pub again. "I haven't been in a pub since the ban, on principle," says James. "I'm leaving this country to work in Hungary. Not just because of this ban, but it is the straw that broke the camel's back."